Who Led the League in Rushing Efficiency in 2016?

A few weeks ago I looked at 2016’s most efficient pass catchers, both from a raw perspective, as well as from a depth-adjusted perspective. Now it’s time to dive into the ball carriers that led the league in rushing efficiency. First I’ll just start with raw production, and in a follow-up article, I’ll look at a special kind of adjustment to provide further insight into the most efficient backs.

Methodology

Like yards per target over expectation (YPTOE), I fit a model to regress carries, TDs, and field position against rushing fantasy points over expectation (reFPOE), which is a metric showing how many fantasy points a player scored above or below expected based on the down, distance, and field position for each play. This regression allows us to remove TDs and field position from the fantasy points equation, to get an expectation for yards gained, and then attempt-adjust this number to get yards per carry over expected (YPCOE).
There are some things you’ll notice that pop out when we do this, and I’ll explain some other adjustments I’ve made in the next article. Let’s take a look at YPCOE for 2016.

2016 Rushing Efficiency Results

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